I am pleased to announce I've been chosen as Featured Designer on the LogoLounge blog this month. It's quite an honor considering how many wonderful and talented designers are contributing to the LogoLounge series of design books all the time. You can catch my interview with Dorothy Ayon on the blog.

Since I first posted work on Logopond.com way back in January of 2008, I've seen the site grow from a hardcore bunch of logo geeks (my people!), into a thriving design community. It's been great to see the many designers from all over the world posting up work to show their wares, discuss the nuances of ligatures and line weights and get in a healthy debate about the many critiques happening every day on the site. I've made many an online friend from my days posting logo work - and even met a few in person. Now, I'm honored to be among the few that have my work showcased on Logopond. You can check out my collection and even peruse the site yourself. There's always plenty to see.

Well, we’re firmly planted in 2013, and the 300 Random icons design challenge has been completed inside my self-imposed deadline. Woohoo! So, what’s next you say? Are you going to do some other 300 Random challenges, maybe a poster or a book? What? What? Did Oprah call? Well, no. No Oprah.

The truth is, I’m not sure yet. To be honest, I’m still reeling from the fact that I don’t have to stay up late every night cranking out new icons for the blog – which is nice. And, my brain’s enjoying the recovery at the moment.

After chatting with some of my friends over the holiday about next steps with the blog, I’ve decided to do a little post-game analysis of the work. You know, really look at the stuff and see what shakes out. Just from a cursory glance I can think of a handful of blog posts that might cover anything from reader favorites to stylization to background shapes. Could be interesting?

So here we go. It's now 2012 and the start of another new year. What better way to begin this next 12 months than a personal design challenge and goal to create some new work and perhaps grow a bit creatively? I can't think of any. Perhaps I'm a bit cloudy still from the holidays. To be honest, I've been rather impressed and a bit envious of some of the work that my fellow designers and illustrators have put forth in the last couple of years. Some really cool stuff has come out of their personal projects, and I'm feeling like I need something that will force me to work a little harder and expand my horizons. And, who knows, I may develop some new styles, techniques and workflows in the process. You know – learn stuff.

By posting it on my Illustrative Designer blog, I'll hopefully be held more accountable for keeping it going and it should be a nice way to see how the project progresses.

I'm not saying all the work will be stellar and some of it may even suck, but it will be all part of the journey and hopefully will help make me a better creative person.

So, what exactly are you going to be doing?

Icons. Essentially, icons that will be communicating a concept with a very simple and clean visual solution. These won't be icons that you will use for your average website for things like 'print' or 'payment'. I am focusing on taking two keyword phrases (Ex. orange juice) that are all familiar to us and creating an icon that communicates that idea. They might be one-color or many, simple or illustrative in whatever style I may see fit.

They are not meant to work together as a set, but just an exercise in making the visual communicate clearly. As mentioned in the title, they will be random concepts and really could be anything. Some may be basic and some may have a little humor, I just don't know yet. That's the cool part of trying something like this.

Can some of these icons work as logo designs? Sure. And some of my icon design could even be considered illustration, depending on the work style.

Why 300 of them?

I picked 300 to try and design and post them often. That way, it would force me to keep with it, but not have to post every single day. I do enjoy my family and weekends.

When are you starting?

I'm starting January 1st, 2012 and continuing until I hit 300 icon designs, whenever that happens, but during the 2012 calendar year.